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himself, contrary to his promise and to all gratefulness, having his liberty and principal estate by the Huguenots' means, did sack La Charité, and utterly spoil them with fire and sword!" The utter worthlessness and viciousness of the Duke of Anjou, Sidney plainly warned the Queen, "give occasion to all truly religious to abhor such a master and consequently to diminish much of the hopeful love they have long held to you." On the other hand, the Catholics, being always and perforce disaffected, having already and repeatedly plotted rebellions and devised treacheries, "at this present want nothing so much as a head, who in effect needs not to receive their instructions, since they may do mischief only with his countenance."

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"Often have I heard you," Sidney wrote in another and especially interesting paragraph, "with protestation, say no private pleasure nor self-affection could lead you to it "-that is, to a married life. "If it be both unprofitable to your kingdom and unpleasant to you, it were a dear purchase of repentance. Nothing can it add unto you but the bliss of children, which I confess were a most unspeakable comfort, but yet no more appertaining to him than to any other to whom the height of all good haps were allotted, to be your husband. And therefore I may assuredly affirm that what good so ever can follow marriage is no more his than anybody's; but the evils and dangers are peculiarly annexed to his person and condition."

Sidney offered much more in the way of argument, entreaty, and expostulation; and in some of

his sentences he showed himself a courtier as well as a patriot. After speaking of the scandalous stories that were sometimes floated concerning the Queen, he said: "I durst with my blood answer it that there was never monarch held in more precious reckoning of her people; and, before God, how can it be otherwise? For mine own part, when I hear some lost wretch hath defiled such a name with his mouth, I consider the right name of blasphemy, whose unbridled soul doth delight to deprave that which is accounted generally most high and holy. No, no, most excellent lady, do not raze out the impression you have made in such a multitude of hearts, and let not the scum of such vile minds bear any witness against your subjects' devotions; which, to proceed one point further, if it were otherwise, could little be helped, but rather nourished and in effect begun, by this marriage."

"Since, then," the brave courtier wrote in conclusion-" since, then, it is dangerous for your Statesince to your person it can be no way comfortable, you not desiring marriage, and neither to person nor State he is to bring any more good than anybody (but more evil he may)-since the causes that should drive you to this are fears of either that which cannot happen or by this means cannot be preventedI do with most humble heart say unto your Majesty that, as for your standing alone, you must take it for a singular honour God hath done you, to be indeed the only protector of His Church. As for this man, as long as he is but Monsieur in might and a Papist in profession, he neither can nor will greatly shield

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you; and, if he get once to be king, his defence will be like Ajax's shield, which rather weighed down than defended those that bare it. Against contempt, if there be any, which I will never believe, let your excellent virtues of piety, justice, and liberality daily -if it be possible--more and more shine. Let such particular actions be found out, which be easy as I think to be done, by which you may gratify all the hearts of your people. Let those in whom you find trust, and to whom you have committed trust in your weighty affairs, be held up in the eyes of your subjects. Lastly, doing as you do, you shall be as you be, the example of princes, the ornament of this age, the most excellent fruit of your progenitors, and the perfect mirror of your posterity."

The good sense of this long epistle did not persuade the Queen, nor did the compliments with which it ended conciliate her. For at least two years longer she regarded the Duke of Anjou as her suitor, and Sidney was punished for his boldness by several months' exclusion from the royal presence. But Languet was mistaken in supposing that he was in danger of imprisonment and might have to flee the country. "You will hardly find safety in Flanders," Languet wrote on the 30th of January," and still less in France; your religion shuts you out of Spain and Italy; so that Germany is the only country left to receive you, should you be forced to quit your own land."

For some time previous Languet had been anxious that his friend, whom he had formerly counselled against taking a personal share in the Protestant

struggle on the continent, should now join in the fight, if only for the sake of shaking off the courtly chains he was wearing. "If the Earl of Oxford's arrogance and insolence have awakened you from your sleep, he will have wronged you less than they who have been so indulgent to you," Languet had written on the 14th of November, 1579, and he had urged Sidney to follow this awakening by enlistment in the service of the Prince of Orange. "If your absence from home is not inconvenient to your noble father and your other kin, I think you ought to come. You will gain experience and information, and will return to them in such high repute that they will be glad of your absence and proud of what you have done."

Instead of crossing the Channel, Sidney went to Wilton and its neighbourhood, to find in the company of his sister relief from the annoyance to which he had been exposed as a wearer of court livery who deemed it his duty to instruct as well as to obey Queen Elizabeth, and to make progress in the literary pursuits that were always pleasant to him.

CHAPTER XI.

THE AREOPAGUS.

1578-1580.

ENTION has been made of " The

Lady of May," the masque written by Philip Sidney for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth when she visited his uncle at Wanstead on May-day, 1578, and of his presence with the Court at Audley End in the following July, when a leading part in the compliments offered to her Majesty and her attendants was taken by Gabriel Harvey, the Cambridge scholar. Harvey, who was a native of Saffron Walden, wrote and printed in September "Gratulationum Valdinensium Libri Quatuor," in honour of this royal visit to Cambridgeshire and its neighbourhood, and his book included a long poem in praise of Sidney, addressed "ad nobilissi mum humanissimumque juvenem Philippum Sidneium, mihi multis nominibus longe carissimum." The poem refers in extravagant terms to Sidney's literary ex